When I was 17, I saw the thing that would change my life forever.

I wasn’t supposed to be there. I’d been smuggled in by the older brothers of one of my best friends, who had a fake ID. The venue was an old factory, a relic of a time long passed, converted into a club space. I remember the entrance was remarkably hidden, tucked behind the grimy side of a brick building, in an alley. At the time, I marveled at how you couldn’t hear any of the music from the outside, despite how loud it was in there.

Artificial fog was in the air. Red light permeated everything. The air was thick and warm and smelled of booze, sweat, and drugs. Music pounded so loudly, I could feel the vibrations in my bones. A sea of bodies ebbed and flowed, some dancing, some not, packed shoulder-to-shoulder in every direction, and I was completely lost in the tidal wave.

I was tentative at first, but I had to admit that the scene was amazing. There was something so exhilarating about the experience. The music was new and experimental and the energy of the room was electric. It was a constant, brisk beat over which a deep, hypnotic voice would chant phrases that sounded like they’d been jammed together from disparate sources.

Well, I drank in that scene until my brain was dizzy, and then I drank some more. Everything became a blur, an indistinct babble of sound and colors, and I could hardly tell my ass from my elbow. Eventually, I blacked out.

What I experienced next was not an ordinary dream. It was more vivid than anything I’d ever imagined. At first, I was me, but then, as someone spoke my name, I felt something pulling me backward. I left my body, saw it fall. I was pulled further, up into the air. The ground became tiny and far below, and I was looking down on the city. Then I went further. I looked down at America, then the entire planet, which shrunk smaller and smaller. I was speeding up. Light rushed past me. I flew past stars in a second. I left the galaxy and was speeding through empty space. I rushed past more galaxies.

Finally, everything became so small I could no longer see it. I was in the dark. And then the blackness peeled away, like a veneer, and I was overwhelmed by a rush of color. It was a world so full of beauty, it made my eyes water, and so rich and vivid, that even now, nothing can compare. Every color showed itself in a way it never had on earth. I saw other colors I’d never imagined and which I had no name for. I heard odd sounds that sounded synthetic, but with no rhyme or reason that I could discern. There was no darkness here, no silence, no blank spaces, just a rush of everything. Patterns were intertwined everywhere, overlapping each other in a complex web of design.

At that time, I knew I was outside the universe.

Then, I felt another presence, something I can’t describe. It was incomprehensible, vast, and overwhelming. I couldn’t bear to be there. I fell. Did it push me or did I jump? I don’t know, but I was rushing back. The black veneer came again. Galaxies. Stars. Earth. Then I was falling through the atmosphere, and it burned like hell.

And I woke up.

I felt wretched that morning. My head pounded, and my mouth was dry. Every movement brought on a fresh wave of nausea.

But since that day, I have known that there is something greater than us. Life here feels like a big game. You can’t see the true nature of it until you can make that black veneer of space disappear. No telescope can see past it. No instruments can measure it. I’d seen what lay beyond, though. I’d seen the real world.

That’s when I decided that my mission was to tell the truth: that this world, the whole universe, is nothing more than a game. That we are being watched by unseen forces. Are they judging us by how well we play the game? And what is the game even about? What is the point? I have no idea. How are we expected to do well in a game we have no idea how to win?

It seems that no matter how advanced our technology becomes, no matter how many things we accomplish, the most fundamental questions still remain. Why are we here? Where did we come from? What is our purpose? What is the point of all this? Why does figuring out the nature of our existence have to be the hardest part? Is that in fact part of the game?

If it is, then we’re absolutely lousy at it. It’s very easy to get sidetracked by irrelevant things or false leads. There is no shortage of distractions. But if we dedicate ourselves to figuring out the nature of the game, perhaps we’ll do better. Maybe the answer will become clear.

However, that very much depends on our ability to focus, which is something that’s in increasingly short supply these days. As a society, we’re losing sight of what’s important and succumbing to distractions. There’s a reason we’ve accomplished so little. We need to re-prioritize, and maybe then, we’ll begin to figure out the rules of the game.

However massive the universe is, the outer place I witnessed in my dream was enormously huger. It might have gone on forever, I really don’t know. I get the sense that there’s just so much we’re missing. It’s happening just out of view. Sometimes, in dreams, we can break through to it. I have read numerous accounts from people who felt like they were sucked out of reality or that the whole universe was like a film that was peeled back, or that they ceased to have a body and got access to some higher dimension. I’ve become obsessed with them, trying to fit all the pieces together. Working out which ones are genuine is a challenge. It takes time and careful examination.

Some people call me crazy. It doesn’t bother me, because I know what I saw. When I describe my dream to people, it’s obvious that they’ve never experienced anything similar, which tells me I’m in a minority. But I can’t let that throw me off – I know I’m onto something.

The truth is out there, and one day, we’ll find it.